http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/NSUI-to-reserve-seats-for-SC/ST-woman/articleshow/6399890.cms
NSUI to reserve seats for SC/ST, woman TNN, Aug 23, 2010, 04.12am IST NEW DELHI: With just two days left for the last date for filing of nominations for the Delhi University Students' Union, students organization are busy preparing their new game plans. While Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), which managed to wrest the post of president in 2008 is yet to reveal its strategies, the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) on Sunday announced that it would field its four candidates who are democratically selected and not due to any patronage of the Congress leadership. NSUI sources said that in what could be dubbed as an extension of reforms initiated by Rahul Gandhi last year, the union in order to ensure fair representation will reserve one seat for a SC/ST candidate and another for a girl. This decision is unprecedented as reservation in students politics is unheard of so far. NSUI has invited the aspiring candidates for DUSU election for a speech competition on Monday. The candidates will speak on their agenda for Delhi University and an electoral college of NSUI delegates will vote for the best four to represent the union. By the end of Sunday, the last day for registration, fourteen aspirants applied for a chance to represent NSUI during the DUSU 2010 elections. The chosen candidates will contest for the posts of president, vice president, joint secretary, and secretary of the students union. The DUSU polls are scheduled on September 3. "We are moving towards achieving complete internal democracy. Last year, for the first time, we elected our college committee members. Now we intend to field democratically-chosen election candidates too. So an ordinary student with leadership qualities, who otherwise would have been ignored in the nomination process, can have a chance to represent the group and even win the DUSU polls,'' said Shahnawaz Choudhary, head of the Delhi unit of NSUI.